Boundless

John.4:^6-7 “Jacob’s well was there; and Jesus, tired from the long walk, sat wearily beside the well about noontime. Soon a Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Please give me a drink.”

What are the things in your life that perhaps you are ashamed of? For the Samaritan woman, it was perhaps having five husbands. The Rabbis had declared three husbands to be the limit for women. Interestingly, men had no limit to how many wives they could marry. If for instance, a woman’s husband divorces her, she can remarry. If her second husband divorces her again, she can marry a third time but that is the maximum. If she exceeds this number, she will become an outcast. This Samaritan woman had five husbands, she was an outcast. Yet heaven scheduled a divine appointment with this same woman despite her reputation. There may be things in your life that you think you are ashamed of; Jesus is not ashamed of you. Like this woman, Jesus is reaching out to you, He wants to have a conversation with you. Jesus wants to minister to your needs; will you cooperate with Him? God can do anything to reach you.

Jn.4:⁹ “The woman was surprised, for Jews refuse to have anything to do with Samaritans…” (emphasis added). It is interesting that Jesus asked the woman for water and “She said to Jesus, “You are a Jew, and I am a Samaritan woman. Why are you asking me for a drink?” [John 4:9b]. She was giving Jesus an attitude. Just give the Man some water! So, why did the Jews refuse to have anything to do with Samaritans? The nation of Israel broke up into two – the northern kingdom [Israel] and the southern kingdom [Judea]. The northern kingdom was taken over by the Assyrians who took the people captive. Deliberately, the Assyrians brought colonists into Shechem and eventually Samaria to forcefully marry the Jewish women. While they took their men as free labour to their countries. So, the product [children] of those colonists and the Jewish women became the Samaritans. They were like half-casts, not a pure breed. That was a problem by itself, a deliberate strategy of the Assyrian king.

When Babylon took over Judea in 600BC – captives, everybody went. Seventy years later, Daniel interceded, and God allowed the king of Babylon to send forty-three thousand people back to rebuild Jerusalem. These people were fiercely resisted by the Samaritans who obviously did not want the pure breed to exist because they felt inferior. The returnees had to fight, it was difficult, but the nation was built. The pure breed that were around Samaria in Judea spread to Galilee, hated the Samaritans because they saw them as impure. They saw them as symbols of colonization and as the people that the enemy used to oppress them because that was who their fathers were. The enmity was a big deal. We build walls of segregation and partitioning. We put walls where God has not put walls. But Jesus came and demonstrated amid racial discrimination that, ‘I am associating with you a ‘Samaritan’ woman.’ Huge!

Prayer: Lord Jesus, I thank You for choosing me and not rejecting me. Thank You for breaking protocols just for my sake. Thank You Lord, in Jesus Name. Amen!